At the same time, the importance of the product not only does not fall, but also confidently grows. About 10 years ago, an interesting experiment was conducted, which became a clear example for all marketing lecturers. It was called Significant Objects. Its essence was that for selling goods on the eBay platform, not the usual techniques had to be used, but completely new ones, based on storytelling technology.
A hundred specialists (journalists and writers) were involved in their implementation. As a result, the experiment showed that the total cost of goods increased 20 times! Isn't that a success? In the era of fierce competition, all companies are as alike as twins. And for the consumer, it makes no difference who to buy a product or service from.
Creating and broadcasting a clear positioning (mission, brand essence, key promises) allows you to stand out. A person no longer buys a product. He buys feelings. Audience attention is not the only “perk” of storytelling. It is an effective tool that helps strengthen the HR brand, which also affects its attractiveness to potential employees. As a survey shows, a “promoted” HR brand attracts many times more candidates, while significantly less time is spent on recruiting.
This also has a positive effect on staff turnover (it decreases by almost a third). A Beautiful Brand Story: Where to Start? So, you’ve realized the need for brand storytelling for your business and are ready to start creating content that will captivate your audience. Not so fast. There are 4 stages to this journey (no one promised an easy life, did they?).
Stage One. "Reconnaissance in Force" This stage, preparatory in nature, lays the foundation for further work. Its main task is to prepare a content base (collect information for subsequent analysis). External analysis involves obtaining information to understand the context: about the state of the market; about competitors' proposals; about the peculiarities of consumer behavior, including in different age groups (for example, the values of Generation Z will not coincide with the views of millennials); about general trends that set the direction for marketers; about trends in a specific area (for example, the same digitalization).
It is important to understand that you will have to look at your competitors through the eyes of the consumer. That is, exit the system to evaluate it. Pay attention to what your colleagues in the industry say about themselves. What and how they say on their website, in real commercials and taiwan email list brochures. You may know their business from the inside and understand that all these statements are far from the truth.
But the consumer does not know this. He simply chooses between the key brand messages of different companies in the hope of finding something that he likes. In the process of such analysis, you can discover some growth points for your business. So this stage will be extremely useful! Internal analysis is much more complex. It aims to understand the fundamentals on which the business is based: “unique company code” (values, views, interests – in a word, everything that turns a group of people into a real team); global (i.
e. strategic) goals – what you ultimately want to achieve; the strengths of your business (what can help you stay afloat in difficult times); possible weak points of the company (here it is not the statement of the problem that is important, but its causes). Want some bad news? Most companies, at the stage of in-depth analysis, “suddenly” discover that “almost everything is wrong” with them, and this throws them off track for a long time.
This is an unsuccessful strategy. The results of the analysis are not a sentence, but only information, based on which you can “pull up” all the weak points in time. At MindRepublic, we use a special interview algorithm to determine the key values of the company. This forms the basis of the mission and key values of the brand.
Stage Two: Recording Answers to Key Questions This is where the creation of the platform on which your brand will stand begins. You must understand everything about yourself and clearly convey it to your audience. This is not about technical issues, but about more global things - motivation, values, "horizons" of the brand. This is brand positioning .
To avoid disagreements between you and your employees, we advise you to jointly record the answers to the most important questions: Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Who are you doing this for? How do you do it? Where are you going? Brand storytelling brand legend Stage Three: Working on a Brand Story You will need to combine the results of the previous stages into a coherent concept on which to create a brand platform : what your company strives for/fights for, what methods are planned to achieve the desired (for example, the leading values for you are a clean planet and preserving nature; the main thing in your picture of the world ( vision ) is reducing garbage and waste; you are going to achieve the desired ( mission ) by popularizing the idea of reasonable consumption among the population, etc.
); appeal to archetype (a deep image that regularly emerges in human history) and legend (inventing facts); the intonation with which your brand will communicate with the audience (you know, HOW to say is much more important than WHAT); it is also called tone of voice; thinking through the visual accompaniment (logo and all graphic information); following the narrative (i.
e. everything should be connected by a single thread of narrative). Now you can assemble all the "bricks" into a single story. Brand storytelling in all its glory. Don't forget to make the story flexible enough so that it can be adapted to a specific audience segment later. Watch our video where we talk in detail about the development of the company's positioning, legend and mission.
What does it take to develop a perfect story? Not much. It has to be interesting and relevant to the target audience. It has to have a catchy introduction, a climax, a resolution, a clash of opinions (conflict), and characters acting in a specific setting. Stage four. "There is contact!" The final stage is the long-awaited meeting with the target audience.
The more types of content you offer to potential buyers, the better for creating a brand legend. This could be: visuals (photos, videos, logos , etc.); text (a story that can be read, and even the brand name itself – emotional naming will not go unnoticed); audio content (eg podcast); physical content (products or merch created by your brand); using multiple types of content at the same time.
It is important to understand that a story is far from being a synonym for brand storytelling, but only a small part of this technology. Otherwise, some guys will write one short text, but already consider themselves advanced marketers. This does not happen. Brand storytelling is a constant readiness for any interaction with the target audience in your own interests (for example, to tell about your brand in an unobtrusive and pleasant way).
And yes, this is a tool that you can and should learn to use. And now – the most important thing! Once you have written your company copy, identified and written down your key messages and brand promises, it is vital to communicate them consistently ! Talk about them in your vi"Everything is clear": how to fill out a brief for a designer A superficially filled out development brief saves the customer a couple of minutes, only to spend hours or even days redoing an unsuitable design.
It is better not to talk about the financial costs caused by such "laziness" at all. There is only one conclusion: you need to immediately draw up a detailed and clear technical specification so that contractors understand everything the first time. We will tell you how to fill out a brief in this article. What is a brief? When an entrepreneur contacts a design studio or branding agency , the first thing they do is ask him to answer a number of questions concerning both the company itself and the future project.
All answers are recorded in a special document called a brief. It helps to obtain initial data from the client for further cooperation. Each agency or studio usually develops its own brief form in advance, which they offer to fill out to the client. By the way, our branding brief can be downloaded at this link.
However, freelancers are increasingly using this document to interact with clients. The questions that are included in design briefs can be very diverse. Typically, contractors are interested in the following points: the name of the company and how long it has been in existence; the meaning of the name, the peculiarities of its interpretation; features of the company's activities; what distinguishes it from competitors; target audience.
The above points require more detailed disclosure. Next, we will analyze how to fill out a branding brief in order to save the client and contractor's time as much as possible. Let us become your ally in creating a successful brand. Write to us to find out the terms and cost Logo Cases Write to us Filling out the brief Project information Usually the very first question asked in any brief is the name of the company .
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